Providing Advertisements in Virtual Environments

• US 20100205035A1
• Filed: 02/09/2009
• Published: 08/12/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Roblox Corp.
• Original Assignee: Roblox Corp.
• Inventors: Shedletsky, John, Baszucki, David B.
• Granted Patent: US 10,229,421 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0209 Incentive being awarded or redeemed in connection with the playing of a video game
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0246 Traffic
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

The present invention pertains to a method and apparatus for providing advertisements in virtual world environments. In one embodiment, the method may include providing at least one advertisement to be displayed within a virtual world environment distributed to a plurality of user computer systems. The method may also include determining that a user is interacting with the advertisement in the virtual world environment. In one embodiment, the method may further include tracking one or more factors associated with the interaction.

Claims

17. A advertisement server, comprising:

a database to store a plurality of advertisements;

an advertisement placement engine coupled with the database to provide at least one advertisement to be displayed within a virtual world environment distributed to a plurality of user computer systems; and

an advertisement tracking engine to track one or more factors associated with users interacting with the at least one advertisement.

18. The advertisement server of claim 17, further comprising:

an accounting engine to account for the interaction based on results tracked by the advertisement tracking engine;

an advertiser debit engine to debit an advertiser when the accounting engine determines that a bid associated with the advertisement has been satisfied; and

a user credit engine to credit a virtual bank account of a user that placed the advertisement in user created content displayed within the virtual world environment.

19. The advertisement server of claim 18, further comprising:

an advertiser interface to receive an advertisement from an advertisers and a bid associated with the advertisement, wherein the bid specifies criteria utilized by the advertiser debit engine to determine when to debit the advertiser.

20. The advertisement server of claim 17, wherein the advertisement placement engine is further to dynamically select an advertisement based on runtime conditions associated with the virtual world environment and provide the selected advertisement to an online gaming service that has distributed the virtual world environment.

21. The advertisement server of claim 17, wherein one of the factors tracked by the tracking engine is accumulated visibility data about an advertisement relative to user viewing perspective over a time interval.

22. The advertisement server of claim 17, wherein the plurality of advertisements stored in the database include two or more of a text advertisement, an image advertisement, a video advertisement, an audio advertisement, a three dimensional model that includes the advertisement, a window advertisement, a door advertisement, an immersive advertisement, an impact advertisement, or a contextually sensitive advertisement.

23. A computer readable medium with instructions stored thereon, which when executed by a computer system, cause the computer system to perform a method comprising:

providing at least one advertisement to be displayed within a virtual world environment distributed to a plurality of user computer systems;

determining that a user is interacting with the advertisement in the virtual world environment; and

tracking one or more factors associated with the viewing.

24. A computerized method, comprising:

determining that a user is interacting with an advertisement in a virtual world environment, a virtual game within the virtual world environment, or a website associated with the virtual world environment; and

transmitting data to an advertisement server that indicates the interaction.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the data indicates visibility data about the user interaction with the advertisement relative to user viewing perspective over a time interval when the user interacts with the advertisement in the virtual world environment.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein the advertisement is one of a text advertisement, an image advertisement, a video advertisement, an audio advertisement, a three dimensional model that includes the advertisement, a window advertisement, a door advertisement, an immersive advertisement, an impact advertisement, or a contextually sensitive advertisement.

27. A computer readable medium with instructions stored thereon, which when executed by a computer system, cause the computer system to perform a method comprising:

determining that a user is interacting with an advertisement in a virtual world environment, a virtual game within the virtual world environment, or a website associated with the virtual world environment; and

transmitting data to an advertisement server that indicates the interaction.

1. A computerized method, comprising:

providing at least one advertisement to be displayed within a virtual world environment distributed to a plurality of user computer systems;

determining that a user is interacting with the advertisement in the virtual world environment; and

tracking one or more factors associated with the interaction.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accounting for the interaction based on results of the tracking.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

receiving a plurality of advertisements from a plurality of advertisers, wherein each advertisement is associated with a bid for placement of the advertisement within the virtual world environment;

storing the advertisements in an advertisement database; and

storing the bid, associated with each advertisement, in a log.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

supplying the plurality of advertisements from the database to an online gaming service to enable a user to select and show advertisements with user created content in the virtual world environment.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

tracking the one or more factors associated users viewing or hearing the selected advertisement in the user created content in the virtual world environment;

determining that the tracked one or more factors satisfy a bid received from an advertiser associated with the selected advertisement;

billing the advertiser in response to determining the bid has been satisfied; and

crediting a virtual bank account associated with the user with virtual currency.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the virtual currency is for use within the virtual world environment.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the virtual currency is redeemable for actual currency.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein advertisements shown in the user-created content are shown in the virtual world environment as one or more of advertisements placed on models for use by the user, advertisements placed on models for use by other users, advertisements placed on models inserted into the virtual world environment, and virtual clothing worn in the virtual world environment.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein providing at least one advertisement further comprises:

dynamically selecting an advertisement based on runtime conditions associated with the virtual world environment; and

supplying the dynamically selected advertisement to be displayed on the user created content at runtime.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the user created content is one of a virtual billboard or a virtual poster displayed within the virtual world environment.

11. The method of claim 4, wherein the plurality of advertisements from the plurality of advertisers include a plurality of advertisements from a single advertiser to enable the user created content to be a virtual place within the virtual world environment based on the plurality of advertisements from the single advertiser.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertisement is one of a text advertisement, an image advertisement, a video advertisement, an audio advertisement, a three dimensional model that includes the advertisement, a window advertisement, a door advertisement, an immersive advertisement, an impact advertisement, or a contextually sensitive advertisement.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the tracking includes tracking one or more of number views by users, number of clicks by users, and the amount of time the advertisement was viewed by users.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the tracking further comprises:

accumulating visibility data, as one of the one or more tracked factors, about an advertisement relative to a user'"'"'s perspective over a time interval.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a user selection of an advertisement within the virtual world environment; and

providing a response that includes information about the advertiser associated with the received user selection.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual world environment is a three-dimensional online multiplayer gaming environment and is associated with a website.

29. The method of claim 28, further comprising:

accumulating tracking data for one or more indicated interactions; and

determining that the bid for the advertisement has been satisfied.

28. A computerized method, comprising:

receiving an advertisement and an associated bid for placement of the advertisement from an advertiser;

providing the advertisement, and remuneration data corresponding to the bid, to an online gaming service to enable user selection of the advertisement for inclusion in user created content; and

receiving tracking data that indicates interaction with the user created content including the advertisement in the virtual world environment, a virtual game within the virtual world environment, or a website associated with the virtual world environment.

29-1. The computerized method of claim 27, further comprising:

debiting the advertiser in response to determining the bid has been satisfied.

30. An advertisement server, comprising:

an advertiser interface to receive an advertisement and an associated bid for placement of the advertisement from an advertiser;

an advertisement placement engine to provide the advertisement, and remuneration data corresponding to the bid, to an online gaming service to enable user selection of the advertisement for inclusion in user created content; and

an advertisement tracking engine to receive tracking data that indicates interaction with the user created content including the advertisement in the virtual world environment, a virtual game within the virtual world environment, or a website associated with the virtual world environment.